Tonight's Movie: Take One False Step (1949) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

TAKE ONE FALSE STEP (1949) is part of the new Dark Side of Cinema IX Blu-ray collection from Kino Lorber.

The other movies in this three-film set are the recently reviewed TANGIER (1946), starring Maria Montez, and the Deanna Durbin film LADY ON A TRAIN (1945), which I'll be reviewing in the near future.

I first saw TAKE ONE FALSE STEP when it was shown in a brand-new print at the 2016 Noir City Film Festival in Hollywood.

William Powell plays Professor Andrew Gentling, visiting California with colleagues (Art Baker and Felix Bressart) to secure funding for a brand-new university.

Andrew chances to run into Catherine Sykes (Shelley Winters), who he knew during the war; despite the fact they're both married, she makes a play for Andrew, which he politely turns down.

Catherine pressures Andrew to attend a party, but when he reluctantly arrives he discovers the only person at the party besides Catherine is an old friend of his, Martha Weir (Marsha Hunt). He ends up giving Catherine, who's been drinking, a ride home, but it doesn't go well -- she keeps making passes so he removes himself from the situation and gets out of the car.

Next thing Andrew knows, Catherine is missing and presumed dead, with the police (James Gleason and Sheldon Leonard) investigating her husband (Jess Barker) and looking for a mysterious man Catherine had been seen with before she disappeared.

Andrew wants to go straight to the police but Martha thinks they might be better off looking for Catherine themselves first...meanwhile Andrew's wife Helen (gorgeous Dorothy Hart) is on her way to L.A., a spontaneous trip which Andrew had encouraged.

As I noted after my first viewing, it's a flawed film with some odd plot holes and dead ends, not to mention underused actresses...but at the same time I quite enjoyed revisiting it. It's a pleasant 94 minutes thanks to the cast, and on this revisit I particularly got a kick out of Gleason and Leonard as the cops on the case. They're great fun.

Winters is extremely whiny and annoying, but Hunt and Hart make up for her, though they're underused. Powell is his usual debonair self, trying to understand the fix he's gotten into and make it right.

All in all, it could have been a better movie, but if a viewer doesn't expect too much it's a nice watch which has some worthwhile bits and manages to avoid some cliched expectations. I especially liked Martha and Helen working together to help Andrew and the fact that Helen's faith in him never wavers.

The movie was directed by Chester Erskine, who cowrote the script with Irwin Shaw; the script was based on a novel by Irwin and David Shaw. The movie was filmed in black and white by Franz Planer.

The supporting cast also includes Howard Freeman, Houseley Stevenson, Tommy Ivo, Paul Harvey, Francis Pierlot, Marjorie Bennett, Frank Cady, and Sandra Gould. I have yet to spot Tony Curtis. though he's said to be in the movie.

The very nice-looking Blu-ray disc is from a 4K restoration by Universal Pictures. Disc extras consist of a commentary track by Eddy Von Mueller and a three-film trailer gallery.

Kudos to Kino Lorber for plucking this film out of relative obscurity and making it available for home viewing. Even a relatively lesser film like this has its merits and deserves to be seen.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray.

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